China in Ten Words by Yu Hua Page A

read my play and had also written a lengthy paragraph of comments in red ink on the final page. He returned the manuscript to me with a very self-important air. I’d find his comments at the end, he said, and there was nothing much to add, except for one point he wanted to emphasize: there was no psychology in my play—no soliloquies, in other words. Soliloquies, he informed me, were the sine qua non of playwriting.
    I was about to take my leave when he brought out a three-act play that he had recently completed. It dealt with the same kind of story as my own: a landlord bent on sabotage, only to be apprehended by poor and lower-middle peasants. As he thrust the bulky manuscript into my hands he asked me to pay special attention to how he handled soliloquies. “Particularly the landlord’s soliloquies,” he preened. “They’re so graphic.”
    I carried both manuscripts home. First I carefully read his comments on my play. They were all criticisms, basically, apart from a few words of praise at the end, when he said I wrote smoothly enough. Then I carefully read his play. I couldn’t see what was so great about it either; those landlord’s soliloquies of which he was so proud were merely formulaic phrases in which the landlord talked about how he intended to wreak havoc on socialism, and the graphic language consisted simply of some dirty words with which his remarks were interlarded. Such were the standard conventions of the time: workers and peasants never used swearwords; bad language was the preserve of landlords, rightists, and counterrevolutionaries. I felt, nonetheless, that I ought to compliment him, for he was somebody of considerable stature in our town. I paid him a reciprocal courtesy, fetching a red pen and writing a long paragraph of comments in the blank space on the final page. My comments were basically all favorable, and I waxed especially lyrical when it came to the landlord’s soliloquies, which I praised to the skies, saying that such brilliant writing really had no match in the world. Only at the very end did I add a criticism to the effect that the organization was a bit loose.
    When I returned his manuscript, I could tell from the look in his eyes that he was looking forward to my puffery and adulation. I made a number of flattering remarks that made him chuckle. Then suddenly he was in a fury—he had noticed my commentary on the last page. “You dare to write something on my manuscript?” he roared.
    I was taken by surprise, never having imagined that my reciprocity would provoke such anger. “You wrote on my manuscript, too,” I protested timidly.
    “What the fuck!” he shouted. “Who do you think you are? Who do you think I am?”
    He had a point. He was a name and I was a nobody. Seeing the criticism that ended my commentary, he flew into a towering rage. “You’re way too big for your boots!” he cried, giving me a kick. “You have the gall to tell me the organization is loose?”
    I hurriedly retreated a couple of paces and pointed out that there were many respectful comments as well. He bent his head to read more closely, and when he saw how I fawned over his landlord’s soliloquies, his anger visibly subsided. He sat down in a chair and had me sit down, too. After reading my comments through from start to finish, he seemed to recover his composure. He did, however, start grumbling that my having written in red pen made it impossible to give the script to anybody else to read. I suggested he tear out the last page and rewrite the ending on a new sheet of paper—I even offered to do the recopying. He waved his hand to decline. “Forget it, I’ll do it myself.”
    A smile of contentment began to appear on his face. Two officials from the cultural center had read his play, he confided, and they were tremendously impressed; there was a veritable flood of good reviews. I remained skeptical. How could the reaction of two people be called “a flood of good reviews,” I